Please Don't Eat The Mannequins
by Wheatbread
Summary: Davy Rice from JUMPER makes a wrong turn in the astral plain while teleporting to NYC and finds himself at ground zero, 20 years ahead in time. Parody. Originally titled: Please Don't Jump The Vampires. Mainly for laughs, tell me what you think.


_**Disclaimers and Acknowledgements:**__ Okay, this is just some drivel I found myself doing while avoiding writing on my real story. Ever done that? It's great fun! Anyway, I got the idea for a crossover from Luke Skywaxer over in the Gilligan's Island television fanfics. I don't own __I Am Legend__, Robert Neville, or Davy from the 1992 Steven Gould novel, __Jumper__ (also a recent movie, though this is really just from the book). I've also added some of my own ideas. Tell me what you think._

**Please Don't Eat the Mannequins**

World famous teleport and hi-jacker's nightmare, Davy Rice, was making a routine jump to New York City when the unimaginable happened. Instead of landing in his brownstone apartment like he'd done a thousand times before, he found himself on a burned out pile of bricks and rubble, only faintly recognizable as what it had been before. _Surprise! _His old apartment was no more. Neither was half the block.

He staggered out into the night, wondering why everything was so dark. There were no streetlights burning, and only the moon's exceptional radiance allowed him to see that he was indeed in New York. But where was everybody else? The place had obviously been deserted for a long time. He was completely and utterly…alone.

Or was he?

A bloodthirsty collective wail arose in the night from down a side street and he thought he could hear the pattering of hundreds of shoeless feet, slapping against the pavement. From around the corner they came—wild-looking, man-like creatures everywhere. They had their noses pressed to the wind, smelling it, and they paused for just a moment, their ravenous eyes falling upon him, sizing him up. Like a torrent, then—a river of white gaping faces—they rushed _en masse_ up the street toward where he stood.

Something about it just didn't feel right to Davy.

"I should never travel at night," he told himself aloud as he jumped away from several monsters all converging on him at once. He landed safely in the limbs of a nearby tree and listened to their heads thudding together like coconuts. He immediately tried jumping back to the Stanville library but nothing happened.

"Oh crap! All of my jump sites have probably changed as well. I'll have to start over, acquiring new ones." The immensity of the task was depressing, just thinking about it. It had taken him a long time to gather all of those sites. And now one little mistake and he was stuck in the future. _The future? Yeah, obviously the future. It figures things would turn out this way._

He was pretty much a crybaby, so of course he sat up in the tree for a while feeling sorry for himself...until the vampires below heard him whimpering and started climbing up there to join him. _Thanks for the pity party, fellas, but I'm outa here._

He quickly found he could still jump to anywhere he could see well enough for developing a temporary mental picture. But it was pretty dark right now and visibility was low. He spent the next six, hair-raising hours avoiding vampires like the plague and trying to figure out what had gone so horribly wrong—both with his teleport and with the world. He wasn't even sure what year it was. Last thing he remembered was from 1992 in the Stanville library where he had been doing some research on the paranormal. He had run across some random articles about time travel, and then some things on vampire legends. Somehow, he must have gotten his thoughts muddled enough to ruin his last big jump.

From the top of a greyhound bus, with vampires snapping at his heels, he looked at his watch and held it up to his ear. _Stupid, it won't tick, it's digital._ It must have malfunctioned, though. The digital readout still kept time in several different parts of the world, same way it always had, but somehow the date had gotten screwed up. It now said "2012." Everyone knew the year was 1992. Could he really have just lost 20 years?

Near dawn the next day, Davy watched as the final frustrated vampire of a pack he had been dodging all night lurched its way home to safety. He, too, was exhausted but made himself follow to be sure he knew where they were bedding down. He didn't want to accidentally stumble upon them again.

Then he started looking for other survivors…

* * *

He found a lone survivor in a video rental store accompanied by a big German Shepherd, which the man called "Sam." The man and dog were busy in the back of the store, socializing with the mannequins. Davy jumped over and hid behind the counter, listening, not sure what to make of the tall black man yet. He held his breath as the man came to the counter carrying some videos.

"'Mornin', Hank! Still makin' my way through the G's," the man said. Davy ducked lower as he sensed the survivor leaning forward to conspire with the plastic dummy at the front desk. "Hey, who's the…" The man stopped short, perhaps realizing what he was doing: Talking to a male clothing model made in a Singapore doll factory.

Or had he seen Davy?

Davy got ready to jump back to the brownstone rubble pile, but the situation eased as the man pulled away. The man made some other friendly remarks to the mannequins and then left the store. Davy waved at the dog as they passed. Sam cocked her head but ignored him. _Hmmm, good dog, _thought Davy.

The teleport stood up as the man and dog drove off. He looked around the entertainment store for a while and then went back outside. He was wondering if he could still move objects around with him. That skill shouldn't have changed, but maybe he should check.

"I should have talked to that guy," Davy said, looking around for something to practice on. "He's probably lonely and would have enjoyed a friendly chat from his neighborhood phantom. Ha ha." He shrugged and went back to the question at hand.

Selecting a hooded mannequin from among several that were standing around outside of the store, Davy thought about a New York landmark where he'd been in the past. Maybe it hadn't changed too much. He concentrated, and instantly he and the mannequin disappeared from the sidewalk.

* * *

Davy was walking around in a daze, disbelieving his eyes. The city was in such disrepair. He had expected to find more people wandering the streets during the daylight, but so far the only one he had seen was the black man in the video store. There simply wasn't anyone around to make repairs.

He stopped and let the palms of his hands tickle themselves over the heads of grass which had grown to waist-level from the cracks in the sidewalk. Everywhere he looked he saw vegetation that had run wild, growing over parked cars, climbing the sides of buildings. It was obvious people had been gone for a long time.

There were other signs, as well. Charred buildings told the story of a fire that had blazed through town long ago. The city was rusting, too. Sounds of metal street signs, creaking against their posts in the wind made the feeling of emptiness just all that more overwhelming. Flocks of pigeons flew by. Hundreds of sparrows landed to eat grass seed in the streets. And once he even saw some deer grazing together in an abandoned lot.

Davy was disturbed. He jumped ahead to get away from Times Square. He was so lost in thought and admiration for the desolation around him that it suddenly occurred to him, it was getting late. And he hadn't decided on a place to hide for the night. But where could he go to be safe? He was still leery of going into any buildings to explore.

_Maybe up in a tree again in the park._ This time he wouldn't cry. He wouldn't cry. Wearily, he jumped into the tallest branches of an old oak in Central Park and tied himself to a limb so he wouldn't fall. He was asleep even before the sun had set.

* * *

Monsters were howling everywhere below him again. Davy awoke with a start and panicked, realizing he was still bound to a tree in the darkness. He struggled to untie himself. _This could definitely be bad,_ he thought. He had tried jumping once while bound to an iron rail with handcuffs, and the result nearly broke his wrist and left him stretched out on his back, still cuffed. He didn't want to find out what it would feel like to jump while most of his body was roped to an immovable tree.

The vampires were sniffing around the base of the tree now. Davy watched them in the moonlight and realized the only thing that had saved him from being devoured in his sleep was that they must have been confused. They could smell his scent in the air, but there was no scent-trail on the ground. He thought he could recognize some of them from the night before, but they hadn't learned yet that he was different. _Stupid creatures._ They had little more intelligence than dogs.

Whoops, the jig was up. One of the vampires was gazing up at him through bloodshot eyes, peering up past the leaves and branches. It gave a barking growl and began climbing. Davy sighed. _Not another night of this._ The running-for-his-life thing was already getting way old. He decided right then to do something about it.

The whole pack was busy ascending the tree and Davy waited until they were almost upon him and then teleported to the ground. "Hey!" he shouted up at them. "I'm down here, Dork Butts!"

The vampires immediately began dropping back to earth and running at him. Davy jumped behind one of the larger ones and grabbed it around the waist. Then, before the creature could react (which wasn't as long as Davy had expected), he jumped himself and the vampire both to the top of the Empire State building and dropped the vampire over the edge.

He could hear it screeching all the way down. Just before it hit the ground, he jumped to its back and then popped them both to the top and let it fall again. He did this several times, laughing at the vampire's looks of astonishment whenever it would find itself starting over again. Davy once even fell side by side with the monster so he could observe its reactions up close. The way the vampire moved in the air reminded him of the time he had taken his dog swimming. Holding the mutt above the water, the dog had reflexively began paddling the air, stroking mechanically like a robot dog. The sight had made Davy laugh so hard, he forgot to hold onto the dog and she had splashed down into the water. The same thing happened again this time, except it was hard pavement, not water. Davy realized he was about to hit and jumped away in time to save only himself.

_Ouch, that had to have hurt,_ thought Davy, walking away. He was furious at himself for having toyed with the monster that way, only to let it die at the last. He smacked himself in the head a time or two. _That was mean, Davy, real mean. You shouldn't play with your victims like a cat with a mouse._ The wording of the thought almost made him laugh again, but then he forced himself to be serious. It probably wasn't the vampires' faults that they wanted to eat him. Something had been done to them, and maybe he was here to try to set things right.

He began wondering what the black man was doing. Where was he staying? Davy spent the rest of the night, jumping vampires into the bay and watching them swim to shore. They sputtered and choked and looked like wet hens, all upset about it and everything. They would shake their fists at him and grumble around, and then come at him again for more. Quite amusing, really. And all the while Davy was planning on finding the black man again.

* * *

Next day, he slept until afternoon. _This is becoming a bad pattern,_ He thought._ A vicious cycle, if I don't find a place to stay_. So far, every jump site he had tried outside of the city had not worked. He was stuck here until he could figure out how to get back to his own time. He'd better find a comfortable hideout today.

He got up and began trying all of the city jump sites he could remember. He went to George Washington Square Park and looked up at the arch. People used to play checkers back there. He could still remember all of it. It was so weird without anyone around. He jumped to the rental store again on Broadway and West 4th, and then to the empire state building. Nothing really seemed quite right.

That was when he noticed the Twin Towers were missing. "Wow, it's a good thing I didn't try jumping into one of those rooms!" He shook his head, wondering if the contagion had anything to do with it, but decided there would probably be much more rubble lying around. Maybe he'd never know. He jumped again and kept look around, still searching.

It was getting late when he heard the car coming. He had gone to Park Avenue at 42nd Street where he'd left the hooded mannequin. He was checking to see if the mannequin's head could move around, thinking about using it as a decoy for luring vampires into the open. When Davy heard the brakes of the vehicle, he instinctively ducked down behind the mannequin and waited. Pretty soon, he heard the engine of the vehicle coming back toward him. Had he been spotted? He jumped forward to crouch beside a taxicab that had wrecked into the side of the stone railing overlooking a street below.

Davy heard a car door open and then a voice started shouting.

"Fred! What are you doing out here, Fred?"

_Fred? Who's Fred? Is he talking to me? _Davy peeked up over the side of the cab and saw that it was the black man again, and he looked pretty ticked off. He wasn't looking at Davy, not yet. No, he was staring at the mannequin and aiming a pretty deadly-looking rifle at it.

"Fred, if you're real, you'd better say so right now!

Davy jumped away just as the first few shots began firing. _He's crazy!_ Davy thought, and decided right then to avoid the man at all costs. _I can save the vampires on my own._


End file.
